[URBANTH-L]CFP AAA 2008: ROTFL? Humor Within and Out of Bounds
Jamie Sherman
jsone at Princeton.EDU
Thu Mar 20 23:15:57 EDT 2008
CFP AAA 2008: ROTFL? Humor Within and Out of Bounds
ROTFL? Humor Within and Out of Bounds
Humor, perhaps more than other forms of human interaction, rests on
the collaboration of participants in maintaining what Gregory Bateson
called “the play frame.” Yet it can also be used in the service of
aggression, or resistance, and can result from feelings of
degradation, pain, hurt, and anger. Likewise, responses to humor can
be as diverse as a beautiful melodic laugh or a menacing wheeze. This
panel explores frameworks of humor, broadly conceived, in a range of
use-contexts. In what contexts do the framing(s) of humor and joking
themselves become objects of play? How are such frames established
and maintained (or broken) in contextually specific ways? What is
enabled through the marking and unmarking of humor as such? How are
power, pain, resistance, aggression and collaboration used in a given
comedic context? What kinds of sociality are managed and/or enabled
through the use humor? What is precluded? Is there such a thing as
funny just for the sake of pleasure? And finally, when does humor
enable speech, and when does it cover silence?
We welcome submissions of papers that address humor, jokes, and
comedic contexts from a broad range of theoretical and disciplinary
perspectives.
Please send 250 word abstracts to Jamie Sherman: jsone at princeton.edu
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